


Drowning

by Linnrinn



Series: Death Is Only The Beginning... [2]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: F/F, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:35:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28211016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linnrinn/pseuds/Linnrinn
Summary: Quynh has returned. Booker makes for a proper and fitting damsel in distress. Immortals meeting again after centuries is no less violent and dramatic than any other family reunion.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Death Is Only The Beginning... [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2066418
Comments: 4
Kudos: 51





	Drowning

**Author's Note:**

> Yes i had to use the dreaded google translate for parts where the no doubt multi lingual immortals utilize more than just english. sadly, the friends and family that i have that are bilingual around me are tagalog, spanish, korean and pidgen respectively.   
> so, if you happen to know a more appropriate phrase for what i poorly translated on a cookie cutter translation site that no doubt sounds cringe worthy to a fluent speaker's ears, please feel free to let me know and i will change it!  
> i know i can just put it in italics to indicate a different language, but i love the visual of seeing the differences than just italian "italics", french "italics", ect.

“Hello, Booker.”

Booker stared in shock at the Vietnamese woman he had only ever seen in dreams. He vaguely wondered if he was dreaming at that moment, passed out somewhere in one of his masochistic, self-sabotaging benders. He squeezed his eyes shut, the women in the red coat and the barrel of his gun disappearing before he opened them again. The view was unchanged.

The woman calmly filled a glass with water and stared at him over the rim, drinking sedately. Booker felt his insides shudder, seeing past the placid front to the unhinged chaos underneath. It peeked out from behind her eyes, threatening.

“Quynh.” He answered, lowering his gun. There was no point in shooting her. Immortality aside, intuition told him that it would do little to slow her. She and Andy had warred and fought in battles for far longer than him. While he felt his two hundred some years had lasted for an eternity, he was still fairly young compared to the others (barring Nile).

“It’s nice to meet you, Booker.” The Frenchman stayed silent and still, waiting to see what the smaller woman was going to do.

Quynh turned her back to him, leisurely exploring his dingy flat as she sipped her damn water and Booker saw the power flex for what it was. She paused to look out of his window at the city through the blurred glass.

“Are all the new immortals this untalkative or is it just you?” She cocked her head to the side as if inquisitive, but the downward pull of her chin gave the move an insidious air as her dark eyes stared up at him.

Booker stepped fully through the doorframe and shut the door behind him. “I’m glad you made it out. Andy will be happy to see you.”

“Will she?” She sounded unconvinced.

“Of course. She was beyond devastated when she lost you.”

That still facade rippled with anger for a moment before the waters stilled. “She seemed to be able to replace me rather quickly. You and the other women. Nile.”

“Just because she found us doesn't mean that it erased the loss of you. Go find her, Quynh. Talk to her.”

“Oh, I plan to more than just talk to her, Booker. And you’re going to help me.”

Booker frowned warily, watching her finish circling his living room and come to a stop in front of him. “Even if I wanted to, I can’t. Had a falling out with the family recently and I’m in time out.”

“You won’t have to do much, Booker. Just play the part of unwilling and helpless hostage.” She took a step closer.

“They won’t come for me. They may actually encourage you. It’s gonna take decades before they will even want to acknowledge my existence.” Booker suddenly knew what a hunted animal felt when being stalked. She was so much smaller than him but each limb made him feel like he was facing off with a snake coiled to spring.

“You and I both know Andy, Booker. Family matters, no matter what.” And then she moved in a blur of red.

\- - -

Nile groaned, collapsing on a couch in exhaustion, only to cough at the cloud of dust that viciously enveloped her upon being disturbed. Joe entered the front door as the dust peaked in height around her.

“We haven’t been to this safe house in a while,” Joe grinned as she coughed and attempted to wave the cloud away. The house was dark and dusty, but it was not as bad as some of the places they had taken her to in the past eight months. They were somewhere in the UK, but Nile was too tired to ask where specifically.

Andy entered the door behind Joe, dropping her duffle and labrys nearby and took one of the dining room chairs. “We can do some cleaning tomorrow since we plan to linger here for a bit. Copley said he needed time to do research for the next job and scrub our presence from this one, so it will be some time before we need to move.”

Nile nodded, happy to have a small break after the long trail of missions these last few months. It seemed that they had been constantly traveling since they’d left Booker and talked Copley into being their one man clean up crew. She didn't know if the increased volume was due to Andy’s seemingly renewed purpose or that they were all trying to distract themselves from the events with Merrick and the subsequent parting from Booker.

The ceiling lights flickered on suddenly, heralding Nicky’s success in turning on the electricity. Joe immediately moved to the kitchen, banging around the stove and cupboards.

“Do we have anything to drink?” Andy asked from where she was slouched in a chair tiredly.

“Tea. Coffee. Water.” Joe answered, firing up the stove to heat the kettle and plugging in the coffee maker.

“I meant alcohol.”

“Andy, we talked about your alcohol consumption now that you’re…” Nicky started to answer as he entered the front door and closed it, trailing off in sadness.

Mortal. The last six months that word had been hanging over them. A cloud of foreboding, an elephant in the room, a curse that no one would utter.

“I’m mortal, not dead.” Everyone but Andy. She seemed to be doing better with it than Joe, Nicky and Nile. Her comment fell flat with the reminder of her new status. Nicky sat heavily next to Nile as the banging in the kitchen seemed to get louder with Joe’s distress at the swift mood change.

Nile tiredly set her head on Nicky’s shoulder, feeling close to falling asleep after having traveled from their most recently completed mission. They had gone to Senegal to help with relief efforts after a massive hurricane hit its coast. She had known they did more than fight wars but it had been a nice change of pace to get to help people without killing this time around. But it was no less exhausting standing witness to destruction and despair as it was to go in guns blazing against a large drug ring or eliminate a high value target without getting caught.

“ _Stanco, piccolina_?” Nicky asked in Italian.

“Mmm." She answered affirmatively. Joe entered the room, large hands expertly holding the handles of four mugs, two in each grip. He set two on the coffee table in front of Nile and Nicky, tea and coffee respectively, and one in front of Andy before sitting at the table with her. The Scythian glared mutinously at the mug of tea and raised a brow at Joe. Joe sighed good-naturedly and switched her tea for his mug of coffee.

They sat in silence, taking time to unwind and enjoy the calm. Nile’s head was already bobbing sleepily and Nicky had to rescue her mug before she spilled it over her lap. Just as Andy was going to suggest they head to bed, her phone vibrated in her pocket. Retrieving it, she found a video call from Booker waiting.

“What’s up, Boss?” Joe noted her perplexed expression.

“Booker is video calling me,” she answered, her brows pulling together slightly. “He hasn’t tried to do this in the past six months.”

“No contact,” Joe reminded, jaw set in stone. “That was the agreement, Boss.”

The two on the couch had straightened at the mention of Booker’s name, watching the exchange warily. The frustration and anger at Booker’s betrayal hadn’t dimmed one bit over the last six months.

“He knew the rules, Joe. He wouldn’t break them if it wasn’t important.” Nicky said.

Joe glanced at his husband and shook his head angrily. “He sold us out to Merrick, Nicky. He would have even less regard for the rules of his consequences.”

“Maybe he’s drunk?” Nile offered quietly. She knew that the others didn't share her magnanimity towards Booker’s actions. The other three watched Andy as she deliberated. She stared at the screen, face showing nothing for a moment before she swiped her thumb to open the call. And then she gasped in shock. Nile had never seen Andy openly shocked before and would have thought about the moment more had not Andy’s reaction caused everyone to crowd behind her chair to see as well.

“ _Dios mio,_ ” Nicky whispered in disbelief. Joe placed one hand on Nicky’s shoulder and the other on Andy’s. Nile absently wondered if it was to support them or himself. She herself was gawking at the screen. A Vietnamese woman’s face took up the screen, lit by the overhead light of a car. Her cold, brown eyes stared at them unhappily, no sparks of joy or sentimentality in them. Nile shuddered involuntarily.

“Quynh,” Andy breathed out, a hitch in her voice. “You-“

“Surprised to see me, Andromache?” The woman asked, her voice tinged with silky venom.

“Where’s Booker, Quynh?”

“He’s very close by, Andromache. You should join us.” Quynhs gaze scanned the group. “All of you. It will be like a family reunion. Poor Booker seems to think you won’t come. I know differently, Andromache.”

Below the screen, Andy reached down and tapped Nile urgently, using the curt system of hand signals they’d developed over years of work, instructing her to contact Copley. Keeping her hands out of view, she retrieved her phone from her pants pocket and blindly texted Copley to locate Booker’s phone.

Quynh’s eyes sharpened. “I’ve known you for centuries, Andromache. Whatever you are doing, you can stop. I will tell you where I am. Booker kindly showed me how to use this little box.” A ping sounded, letting them know a location was being shared.

“Don’t take too long, Andromache. Booker’s dying to see you. Quite literally.” The video ended, leaving the four staring at a blank screen.

“She escaped?” Nile asked.

“Iron rusts in water over time,” Joe reasoned. “It’s not that unbelievable.”

Andy slammed the phone down on the table. “Fuck!” Standing abruptly, she began to pace.

“What do you want us to do, Andy?” Nicky asked. “One hundred years aside, we can’t just leave Booker in her hands.”

“ _I can,_ ” Joe grumbled in Arabic.

Nicky gave his husband a look of exasperation. “Now is not the time. We need to help Quynh too.”

Nile raised a brow. “Sure you want to do that? She doesn't seem open to any sort of help right now. No offense, but I’d say she’s more than a little unstable at the moment.”

Andy halted, deciding, before her features hardened with resolve. “I’m going.”

“What? No! Andy, did you see the way she looked at you?” Nile objected. “I could hear the Kill Bill sirens over the phone!”

“She’s right, Boss,” Nicky said. “And with you being mortal…”

Andy stalked to the table and grabbed the phone, sliding it into her back pocket before heading towards the door. “As I’ve said before, this changes nothing. She is family. I’m going.”

Nile placed a gentle hand on Andy’s arm, not enough to be forceful, but enough to make the much older woman pause. Nile looked at her, letting the worry shine through her eyes. Andy gave a barely-there-lift of the corner of her mouth, reassuring, before covering Nile’s hand with her own.

“Whatever it takes, Nile,” she said softly. And then she was moving, grabbing her encased labrys by the door.

Without a word, the other three followed her to the car.

\- - -

They drove through the dark hours of the night, tense and worry palpable in the car as they closed in on the location from Booker’s phone. Copley had called a few times when Nile hadn’t explained further, only for Andy to deny his call each time. By the time dawn was approaching, the sky growing lighter as sunrise drew nearer, they came upon a farm on the outskirts of Paris.

France’s agricultural staple were grapes and cereals, so the fields of corn and looming silo’s in the morning light were nothing new. They broke through the chain and lock that barred the entrance and cautiously drove onto the land, scanning for any sign of Quynh or Booker between the rows of corn, the occasional shed and farming vehicles.

“There.” Nicky pointed, his sniper eyes catching sight of a lone vehicle sitting nearer to the silos. As if summoned, a red cloaked figure stepped into view from around the large metal structures. The tension in the car ratcheted up to suffocating distress as the older immortals took in the site of one of their own that they had thought lost forever.

“What’s the plan?” Nile asked from the backseat next to Nicky. The other occupants stayed silent and Nile noted that Andy had gone even more still than normal and she knew that the millennias’ old, battled hardened, and world experienced Andromache the Scythian didn’t have one. Probably hadn’t thought of making one.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Nile balked. “Andy, you don’t have a plan?! We haven’t done any recon of the place, we don’t know where Booker is and we have no idea what Quynh is planning! This is fubar’ed from the get go!”

“There is a plan,” Andy snapped back. “You three, find Booker. I will handle Quynh.”

“Andy, we don’t know what she’s got up her sleeve or what she really wants,” Nicky reasoned.

“We won’t let you go alone, Boss,” Joe added quietly. “Mortality aside, she was our family too.”

Andy paused before nodding curtly as she pulled to a stop a ways from the waiting woman. The large acres of dirt they were on were unplanted, an open space for the silos and an open shed for farming vehicles to be parked. Tractors, a harrow, many ATVs, a baler and a combine sat in a huddle in front of the shed with tools scattered around, suggesting someone had been doing repair or maintenance on them recently. The owners and worker must be, thankfully, somewhere else in the vast fields beyond, leaving them alone for now.

“Fine. Nile, can you find Booker if Nicky and Joe come with me?”

The youngest immortal nodded an affirmative.

“Joe. Nicky. Let me talk to her first. Don’t interfere unless it’s necessary.”

Nicky reached to the back of the SUV and grabbed Andy’s labrys, Joe’s saif, and his long sword, quickly doling out the weapons to their owners. Nile absently wished for her own melee weapon and tucked a gun into her waistband.

“Let’s go,” Andy commanded quietly, steel resolution in her eyes. They exited the car and moved as a group to where Quynh waited.

“Andromache. Yusuf. Nicolo.” She greeted them each before fixing her eyes on Nile. “And Nile. The newest member to the family. Welcome to hell.” She gave a grin that bared her teeth. Nile felt like she was sitting in the moment before disaster; the second you realize two cars are going to collide, or the sick surge of panic when you are falling and you know the impact’s coming.

“I’m sure you’re wondering where Booker is.” She gestured to one of the silos with a dismissive wave. “I dropped him into one of those. I was planning to fill it with water, but it already had corn in it. He sank under the surface a while ago.”

Andy gave Nile a quick glance. “Go.” Nile nodded and cautiously edged her way towards the indicated silo. Quynh did not even spare her a glance. Instead she tilted her head to the side, black hair waving slightly in the morning breeze.

“Do you think it's like drowning?” She wondered, as if truly curious about it. Joe paled and Nicky looked sick. Andy only stared at the other woman, eyes taking in every feature, every detail that had faded over time, renewing memories with the thirst of a desert soaking up rain.

“Pretty sure he already died once at the beginning. I guess there were fumes in there that killed him.” Quynh shrugged. “Well, aren’t you going to say something, Andromache?”

Andy stepped forward, Joe and Nicky flanking her from each side. “I’m so glad you are alright, Quyhn. I-I missed you so much.” Andy’s voice fell to a whisper, the grief of the years tightening her throat and sitting heavily on her chest.

Quynh herself seemed unmoved, turning her head to watch as Nile skirted around the silo, looking for an entrance. When Nile found the unloading shoot, she climbed the stairs to the first unloading door and found it locked. Immediately, she whipped her gun from her waistband and fired a few shots at the lock. The bullets ricocheted out, one hitting her in the thigh for her efforts. She swore, hobbled as she healed, and moved up the stairs to the next door.

“She better hurry. Booker has probably choked on the corn numerous times in the past few hours.”

“Quynh, why are you doing this. All you had to do was ask and I would have gone to you anywhere. I want to help you. You don’t need to hurt someone else to see me.”

Quynh turned her empty eyes to the woman she had loved for centuries. It unsettled Andy to see void in those depths, when in all her time she recalled how expressive Quynh’s eyes could be. Joy would sparkle in their depths, anger and determination sparked like a detonation. The warm brown would be laden with love and trust. It made Quynh feel like a mannequin, a shell empty of its occupant.

“It’s not like he’s going to stay dead. I didn’t.” Her gaze was faraway, lost in sudden memories. “Under that water, in between the moments where I would drift away with the last bubbles of air, I would dream of him. Of his sadness and pain. Of the dark nights when he wished for death. I dreamed of the moments when he finally decided to try to end it all. It seems you failed more than just me, Andromache. Poor Booker, drowning just like me and all you did was watch.”

Andy felt Quynh’s words like a punch to the gut and her breath left her. She was right. About all of it. Booker had been drowning in his own sorrow for centuries and she hadn’t done a thing. She had been trying her damndest to avoid acknowledging it, choosing to hide it away in the corner of her mind as she focused on missions and easing Nile into her new life.

“Please, Quynh,” Andy begged softly. “I’m so sorry. Tell me what you want and I will do it for you.”

In answer, Quynh revealed a sword she was holding from the billowing folds of her coat. The sword was a Kiem, a double edged, thin blade that Andy recognized as one of the weapons she’d kept in one of her cave stashes nearby. She no doubt forced Booker to show her where it was and retrieved it before coming here. The gleaming sword threw off the growing sunlight, looking almost unearthly with the colors of sunrise painting its blades.

“What I want is for you to know the pain and fear and loneliness I felt. What I want is for you to feel the madness that tortured me for all those centuries under the ocean. To know the same hopelessness that hollowed me from the inside out.” Quynh raised her blade, every line of her body singing with aggression. Joe and Nicky both unsheathed their swords in response, Andy slower to draw her labrys.

“I don’t want to fight you, Quynh.” She stated firmly, quietly.

“That’s the problem with you, Andy. You stop fighting. You stopped fighting to find me. You stopped fighting for Booker. You stopped fighting for the world. I saw it when Booker was with you. The great Andromache the Scythian just laid down her axe.” Quynh’s sword flashed and suddenly all three of them were in movement. 

\- - -

By the time Nile reached the top of the stairs, she could hear the clash of metal from below. She took a few seconds to glance down at the fight below and then inadvertently took a few more seconds when she watched in awe as four immortals fought with all the knowledge and skills they had accrued over centuries. While Nile wasn’t defenseless and her training included MMA, kickboxing, and grappling to name a few, she was nowhere near the level she saw exhibited in the clouds of dust raised by their feet.

Nicky was a strong stance and broad strokes, stalwart and driving power. His longsword was not made for quick agility and glancing blows. He met strikes head on, never wavering. Out of the two, Joe was the better swordsman, but Nicky was no slouch himself. Feet planted and stance strong, he did not buckle under the rain of Quynh’s ferocity. He weathered her storm without blinking.

Joe was a whirling motion around Nicky, filling in his husband’s broad strokes with swift slices and twirling evasions as he weaved in and out between Nicky’s strikes. To Nile, it almost looked like he was dancing, dangerously swinging his saif to a tune that only he and his blade could hear. He was graceful and fluid, the dancing of water around the solid strength of Nicky’s rock.

Together, they were seamless team.

Andy was impressive in a fight no matter what weapon she wielded or if she wielded one at all. And with her labrys, she was unparalleled. A perfect warrior. Strength, speed, cunning, unpredictability, all rolled into one. At moments, Nile thought she could identify the martial arts style she fought with and the moment she guessed, Andy would switch to another that Nile didn’t know. Her fighting style was anachronistically beautiful and dangerous. Nile thanked God that Andy was on the side of doing good or the world would be doomed.

Suddenly remembering her mission, she finished sprinting up the stairs and peered into the open hatch at the top of the silo. With the breaking of dawn, she was able to see into the depths, but could only identify mounds of dried corn and the unloader sitting atop it. He had probably sunk below the surface like quicksand. There was no way she was going to be able to in and get him without getting stuck herself.

“Booker!” She yelled. No answer. Silence except for the sword fight outside. Running down a few levels, she tried another unloading door that didn’t have a lock on it, but it was rusted shut. The other unloader doors were the same, rusted or locked. She ended up emptying her gun on the locks without getting one to break.

Forcing herself to take a breath, Nile ordered her thoughts as she had been taught to do as a Marine. Assess the problem. Then find the solution. The only entrances were the hatch and the unloader doors, both of which were not an option. So, the next option was force. Lots of it. Her eyes marked the rusted doors and in turn noted areas where the silo walls were warped or bulging. Racing down the stairs, she bolted straight towards the garage shed.

\- - -

Andy ducked as Quynh’s blade whistled over her head, diving into a roll to remove herself from range and allow Nicky to set her off balance by plowing a shoulder to Quynh’s side. Quynh took the momentum with a shoulder roll of her own and popped immediately back up, meeting Joe’s oncoming flurry. Joe and Nicky were amazing fighters, but their abilities in battle had recently been hampered with the need to take blows for Andy. Joe had a large gash in the back of his pants where Quynh had hamstring him and Nicky had taken two large slices to his gut and shoulder when he stepped in front of Joe while he healed. Quynh did not go unscathed either. Her red coat had spots that were darker with her blood where Nicky had caught her across the back and Joe had gone for her femoral artery in the thigh.

Quynh skills had not dulled over the centuries, though. Rage lent her strength and speed along with the centuries of experience she had acquired. And she knew them. Every flaw, every strength, every slash. They had all sparred and trained together over the centuries which lent her the ability to just keep up with the three of them. She was experienced and ancient, the only person more so was Andy herself.

Their battle had brought them closer to the parked machines and Andy absently noted Nile blow towards them at an all-out run. Quynh noted Nile’s approach and knew she would succumb eventually to three and most definitely to four. She needed to even the field.

When a moment in the rhythm allowed, she leapt towards Nicky, grabbing him by the shoulder and swinging herself around him as if he were a pole. With the centrifugal force, she pulled him forward, off balance and down, right onto the circular blades of one of the farming machines. Nicky choked as the sound of flesh splitting wetly echoed in the morning. A waterfall of blood pooled in the dirt below him and the light went out of his eyes fairly quickly.

Predictably, Joe moved to protect Nicky and Quynh anticipated it. Parrying his attack, she diverted the blade and shoved a dagger from her belt into his throat. Kicking off from the ground, she toppled him and buried the dagger into the dirt. Joe spasmed as she tore through his spinal cord and then lay still, his puddle of blood mixing with his husband’s. With Joe pinned and Nicky impaled, it would take them a few minutes to return to life while trying to heal around foreign objects and remove themselves from their predicaments. Nicky gasped awake and convulsed, trying to remove himself from the blade, only to pass out from blood loss once again. Joe’s limbs were twitching, uncoordinated as he attempted to remove the blade from his throat.

Breathless, Quynh rounded on Andy, a predatory grin on her face. The others were out of the way and she had an open path to the one person in the world she wished to kill over and over and over again.

\- - -

“Fuck.” Nile watched as Quynh took Nicky and Joe out of commission and went after Andy. She wasn’t skilled enough herself to help Andy, so she needed to get Joe and Nicky up and running, which would already take precious more minutes than what they had. Frantically, and with much less care than she would like, she reached up and ripped Nicky off of the harrow’s blade. The sucking wet sound made her stomach turn, but she stamped it down. Once Nicky was free to fully heal, she turned to Joe and ripped the dagger out of the ground.

The seconds seemed agonizingly slow as they healed. Rather than watch the pot boil, so to speak, Nile stood in front of them with the dagger held defensively to make sure Quynh didn’t turn back to the two on the ground.

The two women continued to trade blows with a speed Nile could barely follow, watching as they dipped and spun and clashed, only to draw back and then collide again. It seemed evenly matched for a time, until the rhythm suddenly changed.

She watched as Andy caught Quyhn’s sword in the cleft of the blade’s design, expertly turning the axe and flinging Quynh’s sword arm out, leaving her torso open and undefended. With the momentum of twisting the sword away, Andy turned her axe and brought the butt of the handle to Quynh’s temple. And Nile saw the deliberate uses of non-lethal damage. Andy was holding back.

Dazed from the blow, Quynh staggered. She swung her blade and Andy maneuvered her axe to catch it in the cut out portion of the blade. With another twist, she wrenched the sword away. The black-haired woman moved into weaponless attacks, a punch that Andy dodged and a kick that she diverted with an open hand.

“Enough,” she growled. Tossing her labrys, she grappled Quynh to the ground and restrained her with a forearm across the throat. “I don’t want to hurt you, Quynh.”

“Here,” Nile called to Andy and tossed her the knife to hold to Quynh’s throat. If she struggled, it would be quicker to kill her with the knife rather than wait to strangle her. Andy snatched in front the air and brought the length of the sharp blade to her neck, despite the reluctance in her eyes and the set of her mouth.

A wet cough and some groans made Nile turn to find Nicky on his hands and knees and Joe upright, but bent over as they finished their healings.

“Go,” Joe grated out. “We will help Andy.”

“Find Booker,” Nicky urged, taking the proffered hand from Joe to help him rise. Nile inwardly winced at their healed injuries. She knew for a fact that even after you healed, the pain tended to linger in your nerves or darken your vision for a bit.

Nodding, she took off towards one of the tractors. Upon speedy investigation she found one with the keys in the cupholder and hopped in. She didn’t hesitate to turn it on and push the gear into forward, charging at the machine’s top speed towards the silo.

She might have heard Nicky call her name in disbelief, probably wondering what the hell she was doing. Honestly, by the time she heard it, she was already committed, and the tractor plowed straight into the side of the silo. Everything went dark for a moment when her head cracked against the tractor’s windshield upon impact. When her vision cleared enough to see, she shook her head free of the disconcertion and looked up at the tower. For a second it groaned and wobbled, torn metal giving way as the tower began to tip and then fell right on top of the tractor which Nile managed to bail from in the last moment. The whole thing came down in a glorious rain of metal, concrete and corn.

The subsequent crash sent a thick cloud of dust scattering from its epicenter. Andy blinked against the dirt in her eyes, distracted. Quynh ripped the knife from her grip and turned it back at Andy. With unhindered violence, she drove it into the older woman’s torso, drawing a pained shout from her. Expertly, she rolled them so Andy lay under her as she yanked the knife free and held it against Andy’s throat in an ironic role reversal.

She stared down at the women she hated for abandoning her to her iron coffin in her watery grave. “Does it hurt, Andromache?” She snarled. “Does it feel anything close to the pain and fear that I felt?! Where do you want the next one? Between the ribs? Through your eye?! Or maybe your throat so you can drown in your own blood.” She pressed the tip to her jugular, the whisper sharp edge breaking skin and allowing a trickle of blood to fall down her fair skin.

Andy just laid there, gritting her teeth in pain and staring up at the face of the woman she’d loved for centuries. “If my death will bring you peace, Quynh, then do it. I give you my blessing. Give me your anger, your hate, all of it. Take your healing from my death, _tình yêu của tôi_.” Andy lifted her hand to place it gently on the soft skin of Quynh’s cheek, feeling so elated to once again be able to touch her, even if it was for the last time.

Rage mixed with despair in Quynh’s face, her lip quivering and her eyes filling with tears, even as she raised the dagger with intent. Absently, Andy knew that Joe and Nicky where scrambling towards them, trying to reach her before that blade did. She knew that Nile would be watching in horror, too far away to do anything but stand witness.

Back at the warehouse, Andy knew that this would be the result of this encounter, and she was settled with it. Andy was sad that her death would bring them pain, but she knew they would watch out for each other. Nicky and Joe would take Nile under their wing. They would forgive Booker eventually, allowing him to come back to the fold. She hoped he would be in a better place when he did. And Quynh could finally heal from the pain, the loneliness and from Andy’s failure. Feeling at peace, she lifted her other hand, sticky with her own blood, to frame Quynh’s face. She smiled at her, welcoming the coming death as the blade descended.

The knife’s sudden trajectory was arrested when Quynh gasped, her eyes honing in on the nick in her neck. She frantically clawed at Andy’s black tank top, pulling it up to reveal the still sluggishly bleeding knife wound. Andy gasped in pain and grabbed Quynh’s hands to keep them from digging into the rent.

“You’re not healing!” Quynh cried out, horror and panic pitching her voice to a screech. The knife lay forgotten next to her. “Andromache, you are not healing!”

“Yes, love. I am not.”

“No, Andromache! Not like this! You’re not supposed to leave me!” Her hands frantically moved over her, wiping the blood from her neck, pressing a hand over her torso. “ You can’t, Andromache! Not again! You already left me once! _You promised me always!”_ She wailed the last before before dissolving into chest heaving weeping. Andy struggled into a sitting position and pulled the woman into her arms. She waves off Joe and Nicky when they moved to approach, signaling them to help Nile.

“You left m-me, Andromache,” Quynh sobbed painfully, breath hitching erratically. “You left me when you-you said ‘always’. H-How could you?!” Her hands fisted into the material of Andy’s shirt as she clung desperately to her.

Andy felt her own eyes fill with tears, faced with how abandoned and alone Quynh had felt. She wept and tried to hold her tighter, her own guilt and shame a band drawn tight over her chest. “I tried, my love. Please know I tried.” She pulled back enough so they could look into each other’s eyes. “I tried for decades. And it killed me that it wasn’t enough. I promised. You and I forever. And I broke that. I deserve to die a thousand deaths a day for it. And to this day it has haunted me.”

Her hand went back to Quynh’s face, thumb stroking her jaw like she’d done thousands of times before. “Something broke in me after you were gone. I still had forever, but it was without you and gods help me, it was the first time I wished death was permanent. I felt like I was slowly wasting away with you in that iron coffin. Every day, every minute you weren’t next to me was another death; another moment your heart stopped and your breath stilled, mine did too.”

“Joe and Nicky,” Andy nodded towards where the two men and Nile where digging through corn and rubble. Nile made a triumphant sound and beckoned them over. Together, they pulled a dusty and limp Booker from the debris and carried him back towards them. “They barely managed to pull me through, even as they were dealing with their own grief of losing you. And then poor, cynical Booker came along. He was a cement block that weighed me down in my cynicism and apathy and I welcomed it.”

Booker’s body suddenly jerked as they laid him on the ground, and he turned over to retch pieces of corn from his body, no doubt having aspirated it while being buried under hundreds of pounds of pressure from the corn. Nile pushed him into a sitting position and Joe walloped him on the back with an enthusiasm that he’d be remembering later with fondness.

“Nile gave me breath.” Andy continued, watching Booker shove Joe off of him in irritation. “She showed me that even in this empty, dark world, that there is good that I have done and can do and will do until my last breath. It never made me forget you, but it made a world without you breathable.”

Placing her forehead against Quynh’s gently, she closed her eyes. “And now that you are here, I’m going to help you breathe again.”

**Author's Note:**

> *Stanco, piccolina? Tired, little one?  
> “Dios mio. My god  
> tình yêu của tôi (my love)
> 
> again, better translations welcome!


End file.
